Foreword: According to sources, Dom Quinto invented the leaf blower in 1957. Later that year, his mutilated body was found in a leaf-filled dumpster. Not one of his neighbors came forward to say they saw anything suspicious. Most strange.

I live in a thirty-unit apartment building on the corner of a block containing million-dollar house, after million-dollar house. The view from my room is impressive, but fills me with envy. When I first moved in here, I spent a lot of time looking at these houses trying to imagine what kind of lives the inhabitants of these homes led.

I mean, I could have actually stopped when walking up the street and had an actual conversation with some of them, but where’s the fun in that? Besides, that is an entirely un-British thing to do. We’d rather peer through the curtains and speculate. Also, as soon as my neighbors might discover that I lived in the 30-unit turd in their Utopia, they might shuffle their kids and pets back into their houses, making sure that the security system lasers are engaged to disintegrate any approaching riffraff.

Picture if you will, a series of tunnels and tracks that run through the Bay Area, both underground and above it. A place where not everything is what it seems. A place known as…..

Who knows what creatures you might see lurking out the window, tearing at the engine of the train.

When I’m having a rough morning after a late night fight with my wife, I love to bow my head, inhale the “fresh scent” of a BART seat and cry. It smells like dirty hair and things I regret saying while I was drunk.

These ads are everywhere. I care about them enough to make fun of their “awesomer” ability to make up words, but not enough to actually look up the website to see what the bloody hell it’s all about. WORST BART AD EVER!

It’s late, and on the BART platform sits proof that (somewhere) a Chippendale’s dancer is out of uniform.

If “fragile” means, “The suitcase that will crush all other suitcases when coming into sight at baggage claim,” then, yes, this suitcase is indeed “fragile.”

“My bike!!!!!!”……………BART would like to remind cyclists that it is not responsible for bikes parked on BART property.

“I can’t believe this jerk just put his feet up on my seat penning in me in like this. I’m going to tell him off any second now…..I’m just going to give this rude piece of shit a piece of my mind…..Oh, boy he’s going to feel my wrath….I’m just gonna……I’m ……Meh, maybe I’ll just stare wanly into an open space wishing that I had the nerve to say something.”

At least this guy had the sense to keep his feet off the seat.

Get me Bert Goldstein in Hollywood and find out why he hasn’t got me an acting gig in 5 months.

I said, “Ma’am, I don’t think this train goes to Paddington station.” She looked at me like I’m crazy and shuffled away from me. Yeah, like I’m the crazy one.

Always pay attention to the signs on the platform; they often contain information that must be obeyed.

About a year ago, I was coming home on the BART late at night and witnessed what most people would characterize as unusual behavior: A young man was animatedly acting out two sides of a conversation. There was no one else in that particular car except me, and I immediately felt uncomfortable.

He occasionally looked over at me with a stare that said, “What’s your problem?”

Or it might have been: “Why are you eavesdropping on my conversation?”

Or…perhaps it was: “This is a conversation between A and B, so why don’t you ‘C’ your way out of it.” He, of course, was both “A” AND “B.”

Had he actually said that, I would of course have said, “I would be ‘D’-elighted.” and moved to the next car on the train.

I witnessed this man do this on seven or eight different nights in the space of three weeks.

I love the French. I suppose that’s not a particularly popular thing to say, especially if you’re either English or American…but there it is. A friend just returned from a trip to Paris; she fell in love with it. It happens to the best of us.

Photo by Sheila Star 2011

When the French opposed George W’s 2003 invasion of Iraq they were targeted by a considerable portion of the American public. I wonder what the French word for sheep is? Never mind. At the time, I was working in a bar in San Francisco, and a customer asked me which was the best vodka we had? I was of the opinion that Grey Goose was the smoothest vodka available at that time. So I reached for the bottle.

“Whoa, whoa!!! Hold it right there, buddy!” the man chirped.“ Is that a French flag on that bottle?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I don’t want that shit.”

“Why not? I just told you it’s the best one.”

“It’s French.”

“You don’t want it because it’s French?” I asked disbelievingly.

“That’s right. Fucking French.”

“So I suppose you’re one of these guys that calls ‘French fries’ ‘freedom fries’ then?”

“I am.” He pointed to a vodka bottle in the well (the contents of which tasted like lighter fluid) and I made him his “French-free” vodka drink.

“You know in France they’re called ‘pommes frites’ and in England they’re called ‘chips.’ Americans are the only people that call them ‘French fries’ anyhow,” I said.

He took a sip of his cheap American vodka and shuddered. He stared at me quizzically and said, “Saaay, where are you from anyway?”

“I’m from England. It’s near France.”

“Well, I suppose you’re okay then.”

“Gee thanks.”

“So you’re English and you’re not mad at the French?”

“No. I love the French, and when this idiotic war is all said and done, the French will likely turn out to be the smart ones. I love French Toast, and I love French kisses. My favorite Gene Hackman film is “Young Franc-en-stein,” closely followed by “The French Connection.” My favorite celebratory beverage is Champagne…a region in France. I like songs about the Champs Elysées. I make my coffee in a French press. My favorite comedy is Napoleon Dynamite, and I don’t say ‘fil-lit’ of fish I say ‘fhil-llaay.’ That will be sixteen dollars, s’il vous plait.”

“Sixteen dollars for cheap vodka?”

“Taxes. Your president’s got to pay for those bombs somehow. What, you think he’s going to use his own money? Now pay up and leave, and don’t let the door hit your derriere on the way out.”

The English notoriously have a love/hate relationship with the French, as demonstrated in this tongue-in-cheek satirical music video below.

Daydreaming is a wonderful thing because in our conscious state we take our mind where we want to go. You’re at your desk in your office and you see a Safeway bag flutter by the window in the wind. That bag is the star of that moment and you think to yourself That plastic bag is free. Free to do whatever it wants. You daydream the possibilities of such freedom. The plastic bag can pause for a break whenever it wants. It doesn’t have to report to a boss. The bag is its own boss.

You’re not really thinking about the other roles the plastic bag may have had in its past, say as a moccasin to a homeless man, or the future it may hold: as the overburdened bulging receptacle of lukewarm dog crap scooped from the sidewalk dropped by a 90 pound Doberman Pinscher. You’re just in that moment in the gentle comfort of your daydream-like state.
A daydream might occur while in line at the supermarket. I really like this girl working the checkout. I wonder if she thinks I’m cute, you think to yourself. It’s not a stretch. Your daydreams are like a film you might see on IFC or The Sundance Channel. You know the sort of thing: a slow-paced but charming independent film. In the end it was a good story based in reality with no car chases and nary a building exploding, but it sure was real.

Okay, so yeah, daydreams are kind of boring. Let’s put it this way: I’ve never rested my chin on my palm in a moment of quiet solitude and gazed out of a window at a beautiful spring morning and daydreamed of being in a plane crash. Nor have I daydreamed about being shot at, stabbed, or fallen from a great height only to wake up from said daydream in a startled manner. Oh sure, seconds later I’ll be comforted by an Austrian nurse whose eyebrows are made of explosive camembert cheese, but these moments are reserved for my real dreams when I’m asleep and anything (and I mean anything) can happen.
Night-time dreams are like high-budget action movies. Seriously, people, Armageddon is coming and I need to be at my best to save all you motherfuckers. This is a dream and I had better bring my A-game or you are all in big trouble. Seriously, who the hell is gonna save your sorry asses in my dream when those aliens begin dropping from the sky and start pollinating our planet with pod-people? You? You, daydreaming slacker. I don’t think so.
Now please excuse me, for The Bay Area Brit has a big weekend to prepare for. Emperor Hirohito, Edith Piaff, Johnny Weismuller and his dancing crocodiles, the remaining living performers from the original Cirque Du Soleil, Eskimo zombies, Lady Gaga, a Bolivian fruit bat, the element fire, Mexican werewolves, Ursula Andress, Godzilla’s deaf aunt, King Henry VIII, and a rubber fire hydrant are all scheduled to appear in my dreams.
Nighty-night!